Apr 03, 2009

HSUS: MAKING UP NUMBERS TO CARRY THE DAY?

Someone using the immensely credible handle, 'Anonymous', has been posting a comment...

"HSUS got the $190,000 from the amicus brief filed in the Michael Vick
case. The brief was signed by ADOA, the Animal Adoption Center, Best
Friends, The Cape Fear APBT Club,CHAKO, The Maryland Dog Federation,
The National American Pit Bull Terrier Association, The Real Pit Bull
Foundation for Advocacy and Rescue, Spindletop Refuge,Villalobos Rescue
Center, &Worthy Companions Domestic Animal Rescue"

...here and there, notably at Yesbiscuit! and Blue Dog State, both of whom (along with yours truly) have exposed the Wilkes County involvement of the HSUS using the transcript in the case.

Trouble is, it's a lie. BDS has been wondering where the $190,000 per dog rehabilitation cost mentioned by Amanda Harrington in court came from - and so have I.

Well, it certainly didn't come from the referenced Amicus curiae brief filed in the Vick case, as the intrepid BDS has discovered:

The amicus brief reads (emphasis aded) . . .

"Amici estimate an average cost of $2,500 per dog
for assessment and rehabilitation. To the extent that the Government
has calculated an amount in excess of that figure, Amici adopt the
amount estimated by the Government."

So, for the 53 Vick dogs, the estimate was $132,500 -- for all 53 dogs.

Not exactly $190,000 per dog, is it?

So, again: where did that $190,000 come from ?

Are we looking at perjury? Extortion? What?

Yeah, are we looking at perjury? Extortion? What? How about libel? Do Anonymous's comments constitute libel, or just a desperate attempt to lie about verifiable facts?

Over to you, Wayne-O.

Update:

It seems we aren't looking at either perjury, extortion or libel but we are still looking at something very fishy -

There's more information in another comment at BDS -

Page 29, Section A....

Rehabilitation of fighting dogs is a
time consuming, labor intensive effort which requires 4 to 6 hours each
day per dog. Qualified trainers earn between $50.00-$75.00 per hour. At
5 hours a day, 30 days a month, this $9,70 dollars per month of
training. To this, add food and veterinary care, and the price to
rehabilitate a fighting dog is a little more than $10,000 per month. If
training and rehabilitating a dog takes 18 months, the cost rises to
$180,000 plus the run cost of $10,000 or $190,000 per dog.

That's where HSUS got the figure, page 29 of tha amicus in the VICK case that had nothing to do with this case.

Incidentally, this snip is not available in the online version of the brief.

Since none of the signatories to the Amicus curiae brief in the Vick case had ever attempted a rehab op like this one, they had no way of knowing how time-consuming or labor intensive it might be, which is fair enough.

However, to state flatly that it takes 4 - 6 hours of professional training daily for a month and for up to 18 months is not realistic.

First of all, if that's the case, they aren't dealing with pro trainers.

We're talking about an average of 150+ hours per month of individual professional training time. Taken for the maximum mentioned, 18 months, that amounts to 2,700 hours of training to socialize just one dog from a fighting bust.

You know, if something doesn't sound true, it usually isn't. Comparing this absurd estimate with the amount of time children spend in primary classes, which is around 100 hours per month for 9 months per year (one month deducted for holidays and PE days), we see that a child spends 900 hours in school each year.

So we are expected to believe that a child can attend school for three years in the amount of time it takes to socialize one dog?.

Was somebody trying to pad the bill a bit to take advantage of Vick's high profile? Maybe everybody is fighting over money, who knows? There's sure gold in them thar 'pit bull' hills these days if you're on the right side. Which means you're not on our side because that costs money and time in a big way.

However, to be fair, Harrington's testimony regarding rehab costs was reportedly sourced from court documents in the Vick case.

I guess we can't blame the HSUS for everything but we can still call them out for insisting that harmless dogs and puppies were better off dead.

They are the Humane Society of the United States, aren't they?

What these silly people are saying about 'fighting dogs' is based on a belief in cultural memory. The premise is that if a dog's ancestors were trained to perform an activity, then all their descendants can inherit that training,
rather than the qualities that made them suitable in the first place.
Of course, the animal liberation scribe Clifton believes this, so I
imagine others do as well. Ah hell, I don't imagine it, I know it -
they say it over and over and over again, not realizing how foolish it
makes them appear.

So, HSUS, you're off the hook on the supposed source for the $190 K per dog rehab nonsense, but not the rest of it, such as the fact that it had nothing to do with the Faron case, wasn't an estimate in the Faron case and wasn't even awarded in the Vick case.

Why would anybody use a figure like that? The only reason that I can see is that they want to be sure all rescue efforts around alleged dogfighting busts are scuttled. That way, they can still kill all the 'pit bulls' and move on to the next 'case'.

Comments

You know how highly ironic this is reading about how someone thinks it costs $190,000 to rehab one pit bull when just hours earlier I was reading about how the Toronto Sun, now apparently the mouthpiece of the Toronto Humane Society, thinks it should only cost $500,000 a year to run a complete animal shelter/animal control facility for a city the size of Toronto. What the hell is wrong with all these people? They just pluck imaginary numbers out of the air and feed them into their media machines hoping that the public will simply accept everything they say without question. I guess the unfortunate thing is that often the public does just that.

Whats wrong with them is that they are all demented, drunk on power or just so arrogant that they figure they can run anything up the flagpole and everybody will salute.
Liars and brigands, the lot of them.

Having read the whole exchange over at BDS, I DO recall when that brief came out that many of us were scratching our heads at the $190k figure, knowing how little pit bull rescuers spend (or have available to spend) on the rescue of actual dogs and knowing that some would have rescued the dogs without any money at all.
Of course we didnt know then that the judge would fine Vick $900k for the dogs care... and we still dont actually know how that money was spent (except for the structures at Best Friends).
We DO still know that HSUS are hypocritical assh****s

My interpretation is still this: HSUS was referencing a figure filed in an unrelated case - the Vick case. NO ONE, to my knowledge, ever said it would cost $190,000 to rehab each Faron dog. And had Best Friends attorney been advised of the hearing, I can guess that figure would have been refuted. It was not applicable to the Faron dogs but the HSUS testimony lead the judge to believe it was. I dont know what the legal term may be but to me, thats BS.

The thing is, the implication in Wilke Co. was that the actual cost to rehab EACH Vick dog (even though according to Deputy Schindler, that hasnt happened). That was the spin used to mislead the judge.
The actual fact is that the amount was not awarded, was not spent and in fact, according to the docs BDS excerpted from, the TOTAL amount awarded to care for all the Vick dogs was $137K give or take.
So, if I ask the court for $190K to train a dog and they actually award me less than 10% of that, is it honest to say that it costs $190K to train a dog?
And youre right, the Vick case had diddley to do with the Faron case.
The bottom line is that thanks to the HSUS, more dogs have been killed for no reason at all. The Boudreaux dogs were all killed before the case even went to court and where he was exonerated. The Patrick dogs? They were killed before a hearing and worse, certain pit bull experts killed the ones they rescued.

Off the hook?
I think not.
A) Dont give testimony in areas where you have no expertise. Its not okay to simply quote others, and pretend to be an expert yourself.
B) If you have any expertise in rehab-ing aggressive dogs (assuming they are even aggressive), you know it doesnt cost anywhere close to $190,000 per dog, much less does it take 18 months. I worked with an awful lot of aggressive dogs, including pit bulls that came directly from fighting rings (according to officials involved in the cases). Ive never spent longer than 6 weeks re-training an aggressive dog...ever!

I agree and thats why when I do quote others I usually give them credit.
I have encountered many dogs that were fearful or foolhardy enough to think they could push me around. Thing is, I dont consider myself a trainer, behaviourist or anything like that. Im just a person who has hung out with all kinds of dogs all my life.
That said, even I know that hiring the best dog trainer in North America wouldnt cost 200K x 53 = $1,060,000. I am convinced its just the HSUS wankers blowing smoke, trying to regain the ground theyve lost over pit bulls and pull stuff out of their a**es so they appear to be experts.
Its been my observation that unlike some other groups who are less than squeaky clean in terms of the whole pit bull fiasco, the HSUS knows little about animals, especially dogs. They say themselves they dont get pet ownership and want to stop the breeding of dogs. Asking their opinion about pit bulls is like asking the Grand Inquisitor his opinion of non-Catholics. Just as using Slow Tommy from Toledo as an expert witness in Ontario is akin to using the KKK as an expert on African-Americans.
Im sick of all these carrion eaters fighting over the pit bull corpse - the one they were instrumental in creating.
The HSUS isnt fit to sit in the same room with real experts.